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Run The Jewels

El-P (Jaime Meline) and Killer Mike (Michael Render) met in 2011 and shortly thereafter began collaborating, hitting the road together on a co-headlining tour that resulted in the pair joining forces in a more serious form, creating the joint project R.A.P. Music. Later joining forces in 2013 as a supergroup, utilizing the LL Cool J-inspired moniker Run The Jewels (frequently stylized as RTJ), the pair in turn revitalized their own already established solo careers and began breathing new life into their ever-evolving artistry. Releasing their debut self-titled project that same year as a free digital download on Fool’s Gold Records, RTJ was met with an overwhelming amount of support, confirming that the rapper/producer team was really onto something both refreshing and culturally impactful. The duo promptly rose to prominence; securing a following passionate enough to crowdsource funding that enabled their second collaborative album to be remixed entirely with cat samples. Despite the reimagining of their project as Meow The Jewels being extremely playful and experimental by nature, the group didn’t lose sight of their roots as activists, donating the entirety of the proceeds from the eccentric album to charity. The duo surprised fans on Christmas Eve in 2016 with the unexpected release of their third collaborative project RTJ3 as a free download, debuting at the number eight slot on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. By utilizing sound branding and marketing, such as creating seasonal merchandise and inspiring fans to recreate their signature “fist and gun” in addition to creating energetic and gritty music authentically their own Run The Jewels is considered one of the most exciting and influential hip-hop pairings in recent memory. El-P (Jaime Meline) and Killer Mike (Michael Render) met in 2011 and shortly thereafter began collaborating, hitting the road together on a co-headlining tour that resulted in the pair joining forces in a more serious form, creating the joint project R.A.P. Music. Later joining forces in 2013 as a supergroup, utilizing the LL Cool J-inspired moniker Run The Jewels (frequently stylized as RTJ), the pair in turn revitalized their own already established solo careers and began breathing new life into their ever-evolving artistry. Releasing their debut self-titled project that same year as a free digital download on Fool’s Gold Records, RTJ was met with an overwhelming amount of support, confirming that the rapper/producer team was really onto something both refreshing and culturally impactful. The duo promptly rose to prominence; securing a following passionate enough to crowdsource funding that enabled their second collaborative album to be remixed entirely with cat samples. Despite the reimagining of their project as Meow The Jewels being extremely playful and experimental by nature, the group didn’t lose sight of their roots as activists, donating the entirety of the proceeds from the eccentric album to charity. The duo surprised fans on Christmas Eve in 2016 with the unexpected release of their third collaborative project RTJ3 as a free download, debuting at the number eight slot on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. By utilizing sound branding and marketing, such as creating seasonal merchandise and inspiring fans to recreate their signature “fist and gun” logo—in addition to creating energetic and gritty music authentically their own—Run The Jewels is considered one of the most exciting and influential hip-hop pairings in recent memory.

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El-P: Also me. Killer Mike: Yeah. We are Run the Jewels. Speaker 3: Welcome to Lorne. Killer Mike: Thank you. Speaker 3: You guys fucking smashed it today. That looked like a lot of fun. How was it? Killer Mike: It was a lot of fun. Speaker 3: I mean performing up in the Grand Theater tent. I mean that room was just sweaty. Sweaty and buzzing. Killer Mike: And that was on a cool day. Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. How long have you guys been here? Did you just get in today? El-P: We just got into Australia yesterday. We've pretty much been smoking weed and sleeping. Speaker 3: I see. Is that a good jet lag preventative? El-P: We're cool. We're good. Speaker 3: Excellent. Congratulations on the year that you guys have had. I mean that album. Killer Mike: Thank you. Speaker 3: Again, it's been topping best of lists on publications here. How are you guys feeling about it now that you've been out working into live sets and taking it around the world? Killer Mike: Well the record's only been out 8 weeks so we got about what, 44 more weeks before we really feel a certain kind of way. Right now we're just caught up in the rapture of rocking shows and dropping flows. Speaker 3: Yeah man. El-P: Yeah, we're psyched. I mean the response has been incredible and the shows have been amazing. That's all we really want. That's all we really want so we're happy right now. Speaker 3: The Run the Jewels - Killer Mike: A couple million dollars we want to. El-P: We want that. Killer Mike: But we'll talk about that later. Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll talk about that later. It will be for afters. El-P: Like in an hour. Speaker 3: The Run the Jewels kind of presence in Australia has been building quite strongly over the last few years. I mean have you noticed with each time you come out? Killer Mike: We started this year in Australia. We were in Australia doing [inaudible 00:01:45] last January and we were talking about, "Man when we come back to Australia, it's going to be bigger," and we had no idea it'd be this. It was absolutely rabid out there today so I just want to thank Australia for being one of the cornerstones of the Run the Jewels movement dare I say. Speaker 3: I mean it's fantastic to see, especially US artists because there is such a big distance in between our two fine lands so to see fine musicians like yourselves come out here a few times to display some work. El-P: We can attest to that. In fact, we're filing an official complaint that we'd like to actually move our continents a little bit closer. It's a beautiful continent. It's very far. It takes a long time to get here and if we have anything to say about it, that'll change in the next 200 years. Speaker 3: All right, cool. We'll work on that. Killer Mike: I think Australia and America are like very distant, very close cousins. Australia has people that like to eat because the girls have nice asses here. Australia has an affinity for fast cars. Shouts out to Mad Max, you know what I mean? We're down with that and the beaches are wonderful. I really feel at home here and I hope to be here more so the 2 million dollars, let's get it. El-P: Like America, Australia has kangaroos and koalas running wild through its forests. Killer Mike: Yeah. Speaker 3: After the next few [inaudible 00:03:14] festival dates, are you guys going to get much time to hang around? I know you're doing a few side shows, aren't you? Killer Mike: Joey Bad Ass, shouts out. El-P: Yeah, we're doing some side shows with Joey Bad Ass. Looking forward to that. That's going to be really fun. We were going to have a few days off I think to roam around and perhaps capture a wallaby. That's my personal dream, to capture, tame, train, and perform with a wallaby. Speaker 3: it can be the mascot. Killer Mike: I'm going to sniff glue with a roo.